Chase Elliott’s motorhome was teepeed after his first win

The motorhome of Chase Elliott was wrapped in toiler paper after his win at Watkins Glen International

Chase Elliott: “Oh, it’s going to be a hell of a night. I’m gonna go ahead and tell ya.”

Chase Elliott picked up his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Series win on Sunday at Watkins Glen International.

He and Martin Truex Jr pushed the buttons of the fuel gage. Heading into the final lap, Elliott had opened up a five car length lead.

He nearly through it away heading into turn 1. Elliott wheel hopped into the corner. He had the awareness to throw it into neutral and let it roll.

Off turn 1, he grabbed a gear and kicked it sideways over the curb. Truex was all over his back bumper heading into turn 2 but Chase Elliott held him off.

Last run…

“We started that last run. Martin was saving gas, pretty heavily. So, I started to save gas as well trying to backup to him. I didn’t want to get too far out to where I’d burn up what I had,” Chase Elliott explained in the media center.

“Then, he started to inch back to me. Then, I tried to pick it back up. As I picked it back up, he was still gaining on me. I think he found a couple things.”

“It was just funny. If I hit a good lap and he hit a good lap we would come out pretty even. We were just better in completely different parts of the race track. My big thing was trying to make the most of the sections where I thought I was better than him.”

“We were coming to that white flag. I felt like I had a pretty nice gap. ‘Just don’t mess up.’ And I messed up. I had to knock it out of gear. I completely missed turn 1.”

“Luckily I had a big enough gap that he couldn’t get up next to me. It’s just nice to win it straight up. You can win these things a lot of different ways. But, to actually go out there and run in the top 2-3 all day long and race the guy that’s won the past two road course races. It’s very satisfying.”

“Yeah, I blew it there. Glad that the gap was there to him. Yeah, don’t do that.”

Crew Chief Alan Gustafson

“The very first race we worked together at Daytona, we kinda sucked,” Alan Gustafson stated from the Watkins Glen media center.

“Past that, I felt like he could win right away. I felt like he could win every race … I felt like it was going to go our way and there was countless races that didn’t.”

“In my experience, the statistics end up evening out. There’s going to probably be some races that we get that we shouldn’t get. You just gotta stay after it.”

Cover Photo: WATKINS GLEN, NY - AUGUST 05: Chase Elliott, driver of the #9 SunEnergy1 Chevrolet, takes the checkered flag to win during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GoBowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 5, 2018 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)